There is an inevitability implicit in the directness of Tsering Wangmo Dhompa's poetry that leaves the reader quite unprepared for the sudden leaps in reality it then proposes.

As the first Tibetan-American poet to receive any substantial distribution, Dhompa opens U.S. poetry up to new modes of possibility in almost anything she does.

She is a terrific one, on any terms.

Dhompa isn't just about bringing some new strands of thread into the American literary tapestry, she's out to reweave the whole thing. We all stand to be far richer for that. But we'll have to pay attention.